Planetary physics

Shock-compression science, which has developed and matured since its inception in 1955. has never before been documented in book form. Over this period, shock-compression research has provided numerous major contributions to scientific and industrial technology. As a result, our knowledge of geophysics, planetary physics, and astrophysics has substantially improved, and shock processes have become standard industrial methods in materials synthesis and processing. Characterizations of shock-compressed matter have been broadened and enriched with involvements of the fields of physics, electrical engineering, solid mechanics, metallurgy, geophysics, and materials science... 

University of California—Los Angeles, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Environmental Science and Engineering, Los Angeles, CA 90024... 

Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics University of California Los Angeles Los Angeles, California 90095-1567, U.S.A. 

M. McElroy, Harvard University, The Center of Earth and Planetary Physics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. 

Work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract number W-7405-ENG-48. Work supported in part by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics. 

Note This chapter is the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics Contribution No. 3355... 

F.W. Aston, The rarity of the inert gases on the earth, Nature 113 (1924) 786. For Aston s interest in isotopic geochemistry, see also Aston, Isotopes (London, 1923), where he praised Harkins s very valuable discussion (on 111). The history of the planetisemal theory is covered in S.G. Brush, A History of Modem Planetary Physics. Vol. 3. Fruitful Encounters The Origin of the Solar System and of the Moon from Chamberlin to Apollo (Cambridge, 1996), 22-67. 

H.C. Urey, The origin and development of the earth and other terrestrial planets, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 1 (1951) 209-277, 263-268. H.C. Urey, The Planets Their Origin and Development (New Haven, 1952). On Urey and chemical cosmogony, see Brush, A History of Modem Planetary Physics, 144-159 and Doel, Solar System Astronomy in America, 92-108. See also the contributions in H. Craig, S. L. Miller, and G. J. Wasserburg (eds.), Isotopic and Cosmic Chemistry. Dedicated to Harold C. Urey on his Seventieth Birthday (Amsterdam, 1964). Urey, The origin and development of the earth and other terrestrial planets, 232. 

Current address Department of Environmental Community Medicine, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ 08854 2Current address Center for Earth Planetary Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138... 

We are indebted to Roy Middleton of University of Pennsylvania for calling our attention to reference 19 and for T. A. Tombrello and D. A. Papanastassiou of the California Institute of Technology for their collaboration. We are also grateful for material provided by the late Glynn Issac of Harvard University as organized and revised by Martha J. Tappen and commented upon by Eric Trinkaus of the University of New Mexico. We also appreciate the comments of A. J. T. Jull of the University of Arizona and Eric Delson of the American Museum of Natural History, New York on an earlier draft. This is contribution 87/7 of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Riverside. 

After the war Libby became professor of chemistry in the department of chemistry and Institute for Nuclear Studies (Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies) of the University of Chicago. In 1954 he was appointed by President Eisenhower to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, staying until 1959, when he became professor of chemistry in the University of California at Los Angeles. He became founding director of the UCLA Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics in 1962. 

A few informative properties of life come from easy category distinctions, such as the fact that all known life makes essential use of carbon and carbon-oxygen-nitrogen molecules in liquid water solution. The seemingly trivial observation that such carbaquist chemistry is ruled out if astrophysical carbon abundance lies below a certain threshold enabled Hoyle [1] to predict the 7.6 MeV carbon-12 ( C) nuclear resonance with remarkable precision because the discovery of the triple-alpha reaction synthesis of in stars happens to be a bottleneck for stellar nucleosynthesis of all the heavy elements. The pragmatic information in this prediction is easy to measure because it guided experimental characterization of nuclear structure where the existing computational capabilities could not. Similar sensitive dependence of the physical state of water has been used to define a habitable zone in planetary physics [10], which is not predictive in the same sense as carbon abundance (we already knew where the earth s orbit lies), but which creates a useful filter in the search for extraterrestrial life. 

Kaula, W.M. (1968) An Introduction to Planetary Physics The Terrestrial Planets, John Wiley Sons, Inc. 

Rex, R. W., private communication (Inst, of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Univ. of Calif., Riverside), 1972. 

Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life), Molecular Biology Institute, and NASA Astrobiology Institute (UCLA), University of California, 595 Charles Young Drive East, Box 951567,... 

Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics Larorence Livermore National Lab, P.O. Box 808 L-41S, Livermore, CA. 94SS0... 

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